1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to voice telephone communication, and more particularly to the provision of information content to a call party prior to, during or following a call. The invention further relates to the provision of private information content, including security information, to mobile device users.
2. Prior Art
By way of background, conventional telephone service contemplates the provision of audible queues that are associated with call-related events. Well known examples include dial tones, ringback tones, and busy signals, all of which are played to calling parties as part of the call setup process. Dating back to at least the 1930's, proposals have been made to provide generalized information content to telephone call parties in addition to, or in lieu of, traditional audible queues. For example, instead of generating a dial tone or a ringback tone on behalf of a calling party, information such as advertisements, political content, stock market information, commodity pricing information, news, weather or other data can be presented. The information stream is discontinued when the called party answers to allow normal conversation to take place. The information content is typically maintained in a database that is accessible from the telephone network by a telephone service provider. The service provider determines how and when the information will be fetched from the database and introduced into the circuit for playback. The telephone service provider (or other third party) also programs the information content stored in the database, although some systems allow subscribers to select information categories that are of interest.
What is lacking in the prior art is an information provision technique whereby a voice telephone call party can maintain a personal database containing private information specific to and selected by that party. A system of this type would be of great benefit to persons who wish to receive information about conditions of interest in or around the person's home, place of business, motor vehicle, etc., including but not limited to events reported by security monitoring systems. It is to improvements in this area that the present invention is directed.